Shirley Marie Terrebonne Stokes

April 23, 1935 - December 21, 2020

Shirley Marie Terrebonne Stokes...daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, friend, humanitarian, lover of people, with a heart as big as the world and an authenticity as pure as gold. Steady and passionate, this creative soul lived life with a large and in charge attitude but also possessed gentle and kind characteristics that reached out, without reservation, to embrace the lonely and the broken, the hungry and the hopeless. She captured her mother’s heart for home and family, always ready to don an apron and cook up a hearty meal that fed body and soul. Throwing off all restraints, like the sand bags of a hot air balloon, her courageous sense of adventure provided for a rich, colorful palette from which she painted the picture of a life well lived. It was this adventurous spirit that would lift her up to embrace a strong, unwavering faith that would carry her through the valleys and up the dark hills, where she always found God walking and ready to take her hand and lead her through. She kept this faith as a gift to be passed on as an everlasting inheritance. Taking on immortality, she has passed along an eternal flame that will light the way for generations to come. Shirley left this temporary life on earth and transferred to her eternal, heavenly home on December 21,2020. She was given as a gift to this world on April 23, 1935. She was 1 of 12 siblings born to the Cajun, French-speaking parents of Dorcele Terrebonne and Ignolia Clarice Martin Terrebonne of Golden Meadow, Louisiana along the bayous of Lafourche parish. She married John Raybern Stokes of Etowah, Tennessee on May 7, 1953 and had 4 children, 10 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. She is now lovingly reunited with her husband and parents.